Year in Review: Google Play vs. Apple App Store

Over the past four months, Google Play grew daily revenue 43 percent across the 20 major countries monitored, while the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone grew revenues by 21 percent daily for the period. Apple’s App Store growth rate for the year was 51 percent. However, at $15 million per day in November, the revenue generated from the Apple App Store is still higher than Google Play, which pulled in just below $3.5 million per day in November.

In-app revenue increased from 53 percent to 69 percent of the total in 2012. Also worth notin is that just seven applications were responsible for 10 percent of November revenues in the Apple App Store. Even more interesting is that for Google Play, just four applications were responsible for 10 percent of revenue.

Unsurprisingly, games accounted for the highest portion of downloads and revenue, but were among the cheapest apps, on average. Navigation, business, and productivity apps were the most expensive. Another interesting observation is that average prices are higher in Google Play than in the Apple App Store for iPhone.

One more interesting factoid: Google Maps for iOS, released in light of the underwhelming performance of Apple’s maps app, was downloaded 10 million times in just 48 hours, becoming the most popular free app in the iOS App Store.

The most successful app publishers, besides Apple and Google themselves, were Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) and Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), both of which create mobile games.